


the heisenberg uncertainty principle

by antivenom



Series: the kubler-ross theory [2]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Explicit Language, Gore, Gwen Stacy is Dead, M/M, Misunderstandings, Trust Issues, Wade Wilson Needs A Hug, i am aware that these tags do not cover everything, once more with plot!, something akin to when ur laughing but u r also aware something is wrong, somewhat choppy narrative like the last one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2019-08-02 08:46:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16301921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antivenom/pseuds/antivenom
Summary: After all this time, and Wade still thinks there’s hope for the two of them. Wade still can’t see that Peter’s guilt is bigger than anything else in his life.Peter is going to ruin this. He's going to deform the malleability of something that started years ago when Peter knew nothing but death.Maybe, simply, Peter is not meant for anything more than that.Maybe Wade is just wasting his time, and the softness between them was never meant to go anywhere but here, to this moment, where Spider-Man decimates it.The thought of how much this is going to hurt fills him up to the tips of his ears.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven’t read kubler-ross, don’t worry. All you need to know is that Gwen Stacy died (which isn’t even a spoiler for KR, so) and Peter Parker had a Really Hard Time. But: I encourage you to read it, not only because it will make the peter/wade in this even sweeter, but because KR is extremely personal to me, and might be one of the greatest pieces of fiction I’ve ever written.
> 
> To my kubler-ross pals: guys. GUYS. hello. I spent 8.5 million years debating this, wondering if it was untrue to the me that wrote KR, if this story reflected in the eyes of a me two years older was insulting to the me that wrote before, if it lessened the impact of KR, if this was just a way to not have to be creative. But. Then. I realized I left openings in KR on purpose. They’re supposed to be there. And I also had 5k words of KR just sitting unread in a doc. In such, this story is not about Gwen Stacy. It’s about, as kubler-ross says, living--actively living--in a word without her. Moving on, and all that entails. There were a few things in KR that I know are missing, Wade being one of them, and this active, passionate living, being the other. Also, there’s an active plot, which the last one didn’t really have.
> 
> As for the rating: you say, “woah antivenom you’ve written something M? Is it steamy? I thought you IRL had the maturity of an eight year old boy?” to which I say, “Yeah, there’s some steam. But, like, you know me. I’m incapable of writing anything without angst. So it’ll be, like, angsty steam. Like a depression shower.”

_After: Both Variables Unknown (5 Days Post-Event)_

 

Tony Stark looks up from his work.

Today he’s in a full Armani suit, buttoned, pants pressed and fresh from the cleaners. “I wouldn’t, if I were you.” He warns, wielding a soldering iron like a threat. Idle smoke drifts from its mouth. Somewhere, a computer beeps as it finishes an analysis.

Spider-Man crosses his arms. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He intones.

Tony looks at Peter from behind his safety glasses. “You were about to whine about something. I can feel it.”

“I don’t _whine_ ,” Peter whines.

“You’re whining right now. Stop it. Gives me tingles.” Tony turns around and picks up the spindly wire of the solder. “Like a Spidey sense.”

“Dude, whatever.” Peter says, swinging his legs from where he’s perched on the lab table. He’s sitting on designs for something, be it for SI or the Avengers, but there’s no place else to sit. Even DUM-E is surrounded by garbage.

It’s been a stressful few weeks, is all.

Peter opens his mouth. Not to whine, but just to... make a statement.

“Peter--” Tony cuts him off, not looking up.

“Jeeze,” Peter throws up his arms, despite the fact that no one is looking and there’s no need to be dramatic. “If you want me out so bad then why don’t you hurry up, old man?”

“Hey, kid, don’t think I don’t know that you are fully capable of doing this yourself.” Tony looks up again, just a glance. “A whole ass engineering degree and you still can’t solder an IC? Gimme a break.”

Peter grimaces. Tony won’t call him out, probably, but Tony’s not stupid. He knows exactly why Peter is down here and not upstairs. Not with everyone else. He knows why Spider-Man would rather do anything else than be right here, than be in this moment.

He’s a Spider-Man one suit newer, with an extra layer of muscle, who isn’t taller but stands straighter.

Things change, things stay the same.

“You do it better?” Peter tries. Maybe Tony will drop this path of questioning. Peter knows it doesn’t end anywhere nice.  “I’m too caffeinated, my hands shake? I have... super strength? I crush electronics? Yeah. Spider hulk. Spider smash.”

Tony laughs. “Nice try.” He replies, and tosses the work in question toward Peter. Peter webs it from the air. He turns the integrated electronics around in his hand for a moment. He runs his hands over the connections, still warm to the touch. Tony has done it perfectly, just tiny dabs over the sensor connections, no rigid bumps.

Peter looks up to watch Tony switch off the iron and put the solder in what looks to be the wrong drawer. Tony catches Peter’s eye, and Peter looks away. Too late.

Outside, rain beats hard down the bulletproof glass in the lab. Peter fixes his eyes to a hazy spot in the distance, a blinking red light attached to some building he can’t see in the wet dark, watching the water distort it. It blinks, solitary. It’s quiet save for the beat of the rain for a long time, long enough for Peter to prepare for what’s coming. He curls his gloves together, keeps breathing.

One step at a time, Peter.

“You wanna talk about it?” Tony asks, weary. He’s got bags deep beneath his eyes. “Why you’re down here hiding?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Peter grumbles. It’s a last ditch effort. The water goes runny down the window, and instead of droplets it falls in waves, and the light is lost to oblivion.

“A whole _catered_ party upstairs because you’re back slinging and you’re down here getting an eyepiece fixed.” Tony states. “I’m not an idiot.”

“You might be a little bit of one.” Peter grumbles, under his breath.

“What was that?”

“It’s not a welcome back party.” He deflects, “It’s not for me.” This is not a lie. Spider-Man has _been_ back, but this is the first time he’s been back with the Avengers. There are differences, now, and maybe that’s what so novel about this win. Maybe that’s why it mattered enough to Tony to drop money on the cool-down.

There’s a personal stake in the suit now. Now it’s a daily battle to prove to himself that he should be in it.

“We couldn’t have won this without you.” Tony says. When Peter doesn’t respond, Tony continues. “You did good, Pete.”

And that--that. That’s not what he wanted to hear. “It’s not the party.’” he says, quietly, finally. He looks down at the mask in his hands, his Spider-Man mask.  He pulls the fabric aside to install the IC. It clicks silently into its connector piece right near his right eyepiece, and a tiny red dot in the left corner blinks. It’s working.

“Yeah?”

Peter slips a finger into the lip of the mask, flips it, and pulls it over his head. “This isn’t much of a win for me, is all.” He says, words thick as sand. From beneath the sanctity of the mask he can let the feelings take him, can let his chest seize with the might of them.

“You have to go up there at some point.” Tony offers, finally. There are many obligations of being back in the suit, and while indulgent parties are not one of them, Peter gets what he’s trying to say. Spider-Man  has to _try_. It’s always gonna take effort.

“Just...give me a second. I’ll be up.” Peter offers, blinking to check the functionality of the eye. It works fine. He could have done it on his own.

“Okay.” Tony says. “I think Deadpool is up there, if that’s any motivation.” His face twists, belying the words.

Peter snorts, something dry and uninviting.

“Oh.” Tony continues awkwardly. “I thought you two were--” He cuts off. “I’ve stepped in something, haven’t I?”

Peter doesn’t comment on that. It’s not really anybody’s business. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “I’m going to force you upstairs if I don’t see you in ten minutes.” He replies, and sweeps from the lab.

In the following silence, Peter attempts a few steadying breaths, hoping oxygen will blow out the fury in his throat. Instead the silence makes the flames lick deeper, makes images seep beneath the mask and behind his eyelids.

Gwen Stacy rots like sulfur in his mind.

It’s been a stressful few weeks.

That’s all.

* * *

 

 

_Before: Momentum (16 days Pre-Event)_

Let’s back up twenty-one days.

This doesn’t have a firm start, like most things don’t. In the haze of memory Peter won’t recall the first step in the process, not really, so this one is as good as any. In reality, it probably started three years ago, in an alleyway after a mugging. Or maybe in sticky bar between vodka and fresh darts, or in a Williamsburg apartment sputtered with copper blood. Or--look, this is the part that’s not relevant, where it starts. It’s where it ends that matters.

It’s mid-July, right in the sticky heat of it, when Peter Parker dreams of Gwen Stacy.

This isn’t new or relevant or even really worth mentioning, not yet. You lose someone in different ways every single day, from the day they die, to the day you do. That’s sorta how this process works, and Peter is a pro at it, by now, with all the people he’s lost. It sounds a little crass like that, morbid for sure, but yeah, okay. Sometimes he has bad dreams. Sometimes he still wakes up aching. It is a thing that happens that he tries very hard to breathe around.

So, again, not necessarily relevant, but here’s how it starts:

Peter works four hours of overtime before he realizes he was supposed to leave. He feels exhaustion in the tips of his shoulders, and all he wants to do is go home and die for twelve hours.

Raft security is on the fritz again.

The greatest minds in all of science have been working on it for almost a whole year now, and yet there’s still something missing. Peter, since starting full time at SI, has been almost exclusively working with a team to develop an AI to work against enhanced beings that manages to circumvent the security. Peter is the only genetic engineer on his team, so as a result he gets all the long hours over a microscope, trying to find a biomimetic solution to the issue by looking at genetic tissue samples from known technopaths.

It’s all he can do to stay awake on the subway. He fumbles six times with his keys before he puts them in the lock, and even then, doesn’t turn it. There is noise behind his door, which is cool against his forehead, and Peter closes his eyes to listen to it. Footsteps on hardwood it seems. Wade is due back any day now, but he usually texts. Or knocks, especially because it’s been two months since they’ve seen each other. Usually the longer they go, the more polite Wade is, like he’s suddenly no longer welcome.

Peter opens the door.

He takes off his loafers and drops his bag near the door, locking it behind him. He calls out a “Hey,” without looking and manages to drag his ass to the bedroom, where he sheds his khakis in favor of a worn pair of joggers.

“Hey, Peter!” The person in the living room finally replies, and Peter stops fucking dead.

The voice is not Wade’s. Nor MJ’s, nor Aunt May’s.

Peter stumbles out of his bedroom and into the living room, leaving his PJ shirt hanging from the doorknob. And there she’s sitting, a box between her sprawled legs.

“Hey, you know I love May, but she really has _got_ to stop giving us old things out of your house.” Gwen says, hands digging through the box. “I mean, where are we going to put this?” She digs out an extremely old Rubik’s cube, the stickers peeling.

Peter gapes at her for long enough that she turns. Bangs a white blonde, skin a smooth ivory, eyes set into her face, a tired smile lighting them. She’s wearing a pair of leggings, a sports bra, and one of Peter’s oversized zip-ups.

“That was Ben’s,” Peter says, dumbly, finally.

“Oh,” She purses her lips and looks down at it. “Sorry.”

Peter moves around the couch slowly, eyes wide, heart quickening in his chest.

This is not how he dreams of her. He dreams of her as concrete. As something shattered, an unholy scattering of parts.  He dreams of her in places where the fall is slow and goes on forever.

“It’s okay.” Peter replies. “He used to just peel the stickers off to solve it.”

She places it carefully back in the box. “You’re home late.” She decides. Home. A funny word. They’d talked about living together, before. But this apartment is Peter’s, and Peter’s alone. His security deposit, and his utilities. He lives a solitary life.

He sits down on the couch above her, feeling too many emotions at once that none of them register.

Her hand comes to cup his ankle, a casual intimacy, and she’s wearing a ring.

Peter rockets to his feet. He’s thinking _Skrull_ he’s thinking _hallucination_ he’s thinking _cruel_. Because this, out of everything, is cruel.

“Peter?” She asks, and lets go. Gwen makes it to her feet as well. “What’s wrong?”

You’re dead. That’s what’s wrong.

He’s thinking _this isn’t her_ , thinking _this is a stranger_ , he’s thinking _this isn’t right_.

But her spine is straight, her ribs aligned. Her neck high. Abortively, he reaches for her, and feels the soft cotton of his own hoodie.

She’s wearing the necklace they’d buried her in.

It had been a first anniversary gift.

Her casket was closed; she’d been too mutilated. But her mother had sent it over to the funeral home for them to put it on her along with her other clothes. The necklace been gone for the same amount of time that she has, but it's platinum and diamond, an eternal symbol of who they were to each other that will last far longer than the collarbones it rests against now.

He stares at it now, polished and cool and metallic in the light of his apartment. “I forgot I gave that to you.” He says, and her hand instinctively come up to cup the tiny pendant.

She smiles, a full beautiful smile, and her teeth are bloody. “Well,” She says, “I still have it.”

And then?

And then he wakes up.

He comes slamming into consciousness, eyes flailing open, and is immediately aware of his own emotional state. He’s been crying. Branded across the backs of his eyelids is the slow crawl of blood from her nose as she hung from him, those two or three seconds where he’d first learned she was dead.

“Oh,” Peter whimpers, clutching at the sheets around his chest. He takes in a heaving ragged breath (there’s blood on the apple of her cheek, it’s snaked down her chin) and then before he can let it out there’s a sound to his left.

So, it starts like this: Peter wakes up with trauma in his head, and he’s been crying. He also has a bedmate.

He lies there for a moment, listening to the sound of Wade Wilson breathing, modeling his own after it, and then the lump hardens in his throat. Dammit.

He leans to check the clock, swallows mucus, wipes at his eyes, and elbows his bedmate as hard as he possibly can.

“’at the fuck,” Is the response, immediate, fresh with sleep, to which Peter rolls away and replies, “What have I said about sleeping in my bed?” His voice comes out rocky.

“Oh my god, are you kidding?” Wade picks, “You are so lucky my first reaction wasn’t to kill you.”

Peter takes a breath, hoping his words won’t come out with the tremors that will betray that he’s been crying. In his sleep, apparently. “I will not be slaughtered in my own bed.”

“To each his own.” Wade yawns. “I think you broke something. Ow.”

“I did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did--you know what, I don’t care.” His eyes burn. It’s not fair to wake up and already have burny eyes. Jesus.  “You’re clearly going to complain about it anyway.”

“I thought you’d be happy to see me,” Wade says, an evident pout in his voice. He flicks Peter in the back of his neck. He probably wants more attention, but if Peter rolls over then the banter will be over. He curls into himself a little more, as if it will somehow take the weight off his chest. “It’s been two whole months.”

“That’s not what I said about my bed.” Peter replies instead, eyes squeezed shut. If he can just pretend for a little bit longer, keep up the quips, maybe it’ll be okay.

“Two months of nothing but bad guys and rubber bullets and entirely not enough sleep and you begrudge me this?” Wade clears his throat, and quotes in an English accent, “How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”

“That was either Shakespeare or Oscar Wilde but I don’t care enough to ask.”

“Such disdain for the fine arts, Mr. Engineering.”

“You thought American Vandal was fine art.” Peter replies.

“It wasn’t just about dicks, Peter!” Wade says, serious, thrown off track. “It was about the justice system.”

“ _Please_ leave me to sleep.” Peter says, the vats beneath his eyes feeling like frozen lakes.

“You woke _me_ up.” Wade huffs. “Isn’t this a democracy? I veto that law.”

“You don’t get a veto.” And there’s a tremble in his voice he can’t quite cover. Oh boy. “Peter’s room is a dictatorship.”

“Hot.” Wade yawns, and then lets the silence linger, a moment. “Hey, you’re up early.” There’s another silence. The gig is up. “Scale?” Wade asks.

“No.”

“Scale.” he demands.

Peter blows out a breath. “Six.”

“So that means eight?”

“Four.”

“Shit, a _nine_?” Wade says, at his back.

Peter rolls to look at him, suddenly confrontational. “Yeah, so? And what about you. Scale?”

Wade smirks, the scars around his eyes cracking. “I’ve only slept _one_ night this past week and I haven’t had _any_ nightmares.” He grins, like this is a normal accomplishment for normal people. “And you’ve had a nine on the nightmare scale.” Wade says, sobering. “Wanna talk about it? You look like shit.”

“It wasn’t exactly beauty sleep, I am aware.” Peter replies sourly, and Wade rolls to look at Peter better, tucking his arm beneath the pillow. They’re close, like this, maybe a foot of space between them.

“It’s been a while since it’s been this bad, huh.” Wade says, and Peter blanches, a little. He rolls on his back as if to escape the sentence. Sometimes Wade is absolutely off the wall, and others...others he is more astute than comfortable.

There is trauma buried there, so carefully protected that it only comes out when it’s useful. Peter can see that now, though it took him a long while to realize it. Wade cups himself up and lets nobody in, but for some reason, for some reason pulls out his empathy for Peter.

Peter has wanted to ask for months now, but he won’t. Wade talks but he doesn’t _talk_. And, for some reason, Peter doesn’t want to tell him about this dream. It had been too real. Like a private moment. Usually the man you share your bed with is also conveniently the person you share these things with, but is it really a Spider-Man and Deadpool adventure if they don't approach it all wrong, all twisted, all backwards? Is it really them unless it's difficult, unless it's doomed, unless it hurts?

“It’s gonna be a bad week, Wade, I’m not gonna lie.” Peter says, as the ache in his chest starts to evolve into something even more complex. It’s way too early for this bullshit. He wishes Wade was still on mission. He wishes he hadn’t had that dream.

“Yikes.” Wade says, mildly. “Can I get you breakfast?”

Peter looks sideways at him. He works his jaw, petulant. “Yes.” he says.

Wade grins, the sun starting to slant through the blinds. “You are so grumpy.” Wade winks, like it’s a compliment.

“You make me grumpy.” Peter tells him in a huff.  Wade just grins a little wider, the sun catching the slant in his face, and it’s absolutely astonishing that the only adjective Peter can come up with is the word _pretty_.

He looks up at the ceiling, something like a familiar loneliness gripping him for a moment, and then he’s thinking about the dream again, about Gwen Stacy.

“I’m just…” Peter sits up, absently trying to figure out where he’d tossed his shirt before going to bed. His eyes find it hanging from the doorknob. He rubs the back of his neck, his knuckles coming harsh against the grit of a recent haircut. “Just missing her a little more, I guess.” He says. “It felt more real than it should have.”

Peter takes a deep breath in, holds it, lets it out. He cries sometimes in his sleep still but he doesn’t cry awake anymore. He doesn’t do that. It’s been _years_ , god dammit.

“I think I have bacon.” He says, finally. “But no eggs. Or bread.”

“Aren’t you a real life adult now?” Wade asks, still perched ever so comfortably against the pillows. Peter doesn’t look back at him, he’s afraid of what he’ll see. Of what Wade looks like.

“You’ve been gone a while. Things got busy again.” Peter says, finally shaking the sheets from his lap and standing.

“Translation: you’re working too much and patrolling too often.”

Peter snorts, reaching for his shirt and the doorknob. “Got it in one.”

“Aw, my little overachiever is overachieving again.” Wade chides. “How quaint and unhealthy. Hashtag t-b-t”

“Oh please, like you weren't just on a mission that took you _two months_.” Peter says, mostly unkindly. “I’m sure you spent that whole time being as healthy as possible over there.”

Wade takes it in stride as Peter opens the bedroom door. “I missed you too, spider-monkey!”

In the kitchen, Peter drinks tap water straight from the sink, and scrolls through his Twitter notifications. He feels a little bit jumpy, like he’s wearing the wrong skin.

Twitter done, he switches to Instagram and fills the coffee maker, and sets it on. The bleary blinking on the LED screen tells him it’s 8:25. It’s a Sunday.

May has texted him somewhere around twenty minutes ago. She sent a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip that Peter wonders where she screenshotted it from. MJ has texted him too, but it was sent four hours ago and all it says is “RIP Peder i haev made many mistaeks.”

He sends her a text back, “How’s the hangover?”

And she replies, immediately. “Fuck you.”

It makes him smile a moment, and by then the coffee’s done. He fixes up two mugs, and then Gwen’s back, niggling. _Remember that night on the couch after Empire State’s first football game freshman year? Remember my mom’s birthday dinner?_

Remember that dream you had? Peter does. It’s not fading away.

His mind supplies: 3 years, 5 months.

It makes him anxious, this facet of grief. It’s not new or earth shattering, but it’s rapidly becoming the predominant part of the way he thinks about her. About them.

So he’s anxious. About a lot of things, but he doesn’t want to get into them now. It’s Sunday morning, let’s just be cool about this for once.

He scoops both mugs of coffee and heads back into the other room, where Wade is lacing his combat boots, two guns back in their holsters.

“Coffee?”

Wade makes grabby hands, leaving his left boot unlaced to take the mug. World’s Biggest Idiot, it says. It had been a college graduation gift. Wade takes a slurp and then pauses to look at Peter, pale in a ratty shirt and oversized boxers.

“You wanna patrol and then do brunch?” He asks around the rim of his mug.

Peter chews this for a moment. He’s not jumping to get into the suit this morning, because sometimes that still hurts too, in an abstract way like cutting himself shaving does.

Peter blows a breath over the hot liquid in his own mug. This one is Gwen’s mug; she’d gotten it free from the opening of the Queens Target. “Yeah, I guess.”

“You got a place in mind?”

“There’s that new pastry shop downtown.”

“That’s not _brunch_.”

“You want real food then we’ll need civvies.” Peter replies. Both of them are very carefully ignoring that they’ve had this exact conversation before, and many different versions of it.

Wade grunts. “You kill me.”

“You can’t die.” Peter shoots back.

They don’t talk about it. One day it just started happening, and they don’t talk about it.

Peter is not very good with social things, especially _this_. Whatever this is. But he’s not an idiot. He knows that whatever it’s building to, wherever it’s going, it can’t continue on like this forever.

“If you make me wear human clothes you’re buying.”

Peter sighs, setting his coffee down in favor of grabbing an abandoned web shooter from off the floor. “Fine. Whatever you want, your majesty.”

Wade makes a thoughtful noise around a mouthful of coffee, “Y’know,” He says, “If you keep feeding a stray dog, it’s going to come back.”

Peter looks at him sharply, words dying on his tongue. So, maybe out of all the possibilities, _here_ is where it starts:

He wants to say _you’re not just a stray dog to me_ , but he doesn’t. They don’t talk about it, so he doesn’t say it.

Whatever this is, it’s too big for a single, pithy remark, right?

He thinks about the dream he’d just had about Gwen Stacy. His brain supplies: 3 years, 5 months, 17 days.

* * *

 

 

_(14 Days Pre-Event)_

At work the next day, Peter catches a dull moment, and starts googling.

Google tells him nightmares, hallucinations. Google also tells him alternate universes. Skrulls. Implants.

Something’s wrong.

The last few months for Harry Osborn have been pretty bad. The disease is eating through his brain, and his eyes haven’t opened in six months. The only person that he doesn’t trust that knows both of his identities, that knew Gwen, can’t be the culprit.

At lunch he starts looking for drugs--psychedelics, mushrooms. PCP. Ketamine. Designer drugs that you don’t just pick up idly on the subway.

At his desk he uses his work ID to get into the database, to look for people with abilities: Venus, Loki, Headhunter, The Butler.

The mind gem.

It’s a crapshoot.

He thinks about her fingers. He can’t afford a diamond, but he recognizes the ring. There is no reason he should have.

He didn’t ask her why she was alive. He should have, just to see her reaction. If she was confused. If she mutated into a giant lizard or something or Loki stepped out from behind her cackling.

Gwen is the perfect thing to use against Spider-Man. If someone found out….if someone found out the reason why Spider-Man disappeared for a few years...

His call to May goes to voicemail, but she texts him right after. “Busy at work. Need something?”

Maybe the Goblin was talking to someone, before he dissolved beneath the disease.  Maybe someone else knows, someone who would use it.

It was just a dream.

By the end of the day his fingers shake. Unnerved, he realizes he’d been half dissociated all day, distracted and unproductive. He’s being paranoid. Overreacting. This really is not a big deal, he just wants to know what triggered it, why it’s happening now. Eight months back in the suit and nothing since the first initial kickback. His first few weeks had been odd; the streets had changed just as much as he had. It had been weird to reassume the character, to re-become Spider-Man.

He thinks about that now, after work, as he pulls it on again. This suit is different than the one he’d dropped her in, and surprisingly that helps. Spider-Man is not different than Peter Parker, a lesson that was very very hard to learn, but this new Spider-Man is different from the old one.

Gwen had told him once, after her father died, that death is not a part of life that makes you any better or worse. It just changes you. And change is the hardest part of life, sometimes.

Being in the suit, unfortunately, doesn’t erase the day he’s had. He webs a mugger at the crust of daylight and kicks a drug dealer’s ass, and then there’s a lull for about an hour, where his city doesn’t scream for him. He shoots his way up to the Macy’s and sits on their roof for a moment to collect his bearings.

It’s late enough now that he can’t call May, and MJ got a role last month that’s left her harrowed and too busy. That leaves Wade, but Peter is tired of relying so heavily on Wade, who himself is kind of a big case of issues, but has them organized like a fucking file folder. He can take them out and put them away with a precision that’s probably incredibly unhealthy.

The point is, Wade doesn’t trust Peter with a lot of his issues. That in and of itself is an _issue_ , but it’s not like they’re actually dating, so maybe Wade just doesn’t owe him that. Peter doesn’t have a claim to anything of Wade’s, so he doesn’t claim them.

Maybe Wade won’t ever need Peter like Peter needs him.

Whatever, okay? It’s just Deadpool.

He hops from the roof, wind through his arms and webs, and swings to Hell’s Kitchen. Daredevil is usually fun to hang out with, but he must be off doing Daredevil-ly things, because Peter doesn’t catch sight of him. He does, however, correct a kid’s spelling as she vandalizes a local church. She jumps, drops the can, and takes off, leaving the derogatory statement she’d been leaving unfinished.

He retreats back to Midtown, sits with a couple of teenagers who got into an accident and helps them calm down until the police shows up, steals and mangles the illegal piece some idiot is trying to carry into Times Square, and gets into a brief fistfight with a couple of Kingpin’s higher up goons. By the time they’re knocked out cold, Peter is out of breath, mostly in a bad way.

It’s too quiet. He needs something to do, a distraction. Before he was Spider-Man again he used to run, run until he felt tired, but Peter doesn’t want to be tired right now. He wants a bunch of things he can’t name and can’t have, and there’s that frustrated anxiety again, the last of the worst of it.

If this is the Acceptance part of the process, somehow it still sucks. Of course, judging by how the rest of them sucked, he shouldn’t be surprised.

A whiny little part of him supplies, _you know this is going to suck on and off for the rest of forever, right?_

He wants it to shut-up. He can acknowledge that it’s bad right now, but he’s been better. He has. Sometimes when he thinks of her it’s more sweet than bitter, and sometimes other people make his heart beat, make him feel alive, and that’s progress, right? One day he might even open up enough to get hurt again.

It reaches a point where Peter should maybe go home and sleep, but he realizes with a slow incoming of emotion that he won’t be able to. Which is...bad. It’s a reversion. His therapist will not be happy to hear about that one, especially considering he’d been doing so well they’d just cut their sessions to once a month.

So, with nothing else to do, Spider-Man keeps going. Walks a drunk girl home around 2 AM, cracks a would-be rapist’s femur in half, dislocates the jaw of a guy with a gun banging on the door of a fearful family. He chases a stray dog for a while.

And then, before he knows it, it’s dawn, and he’s in Central Park, just over near the point of the reservoir.

The sun has edged enough over the horizon to stain the water in front of him, to turn the hues of the world muted and pastel. It’s chilly. He’s caught, for a minute, by the view in front of him. The reservoir is large and flat and intimately calm, enough so that he can only hear the gentle splash of the waves on the coarse edge when he closes his eyes. There’s a cool breeze coming from across the water, bringing with it the smell of summer sunshine and dew, fresh grass and something else that Peter can’t quite name.

Behind him, rich green pines loom nonthreateningly, their dark healthy trunks supporting armloads of needles so rich and verdant that it looks like the branches are heavy with their weight. Peter wants to approach one and feel the scratch of its bark, taste the sharp scent of pine and hear the snap underfoot of old needles, drying and soft. He doesn’t, because the water is almost unnaturally calm, and there’s only one bench beside it.

Gwen is sitting on the bench.

He watches her a moment, silhouetted by the crisp morning light, the clear baby sky, the everclear calm water that looks like it could ripple for miles if he ducked his hand into it. But now that he has the opportunity to look, he does.

Gwen, Jesus, her hair is longer, hung in beach bleached waves and tucked behind her ears. She hasn’t noticed him, is instead perched on the bench and reading a magazine, a small little smile playing at her pink bitten lips. Her cheeks stand a little wider, her fingers thinner. The ring sits idle.

Gwen is wearing shorts, two mismatching socks, a pair of Crocs--she wore them unironically, to Peter’s dismay--and an oversized t-shirt that Peter knows for a fact is his own because he’s been missing it for years.

The thought must jerk some sort of noise out of him that he doesn’t notice; Peter has gone subverbal. Regardless, it catches Gwen’s attention and her gaze slides easily from the literature in her lap toward Peter, and Peter is hit with the full force of her face.

“Can you believe it?” She asks, thoughtless to the way that Peter is overcome by the heat of her smile. “Gravity waves!” Gwen shakes the magazine at him, a dated copy of _Popular Science_.

Behind her, a bird glides sightless above the water in search of its breakfast, long off-white feathers glinting grayly in the coming light. Above the trees on the far side of the lake, the sun peaks.

“They found those, like, three Octobers ago.” Peter manages, speechless in the face of how large and unapproachable this is. Gwen’s smile falls into a smirk, a hint of teeth, her face moving and dynamic in a way he can’t even begin to comprehend, because he’s too busy watching the shock of blue in her eyes roll upward and down again. By the time she’s done rolling her eyes at him, Peter realizes she’s giving him that _Are You Fucking Kidding Me_ look and then he remembers. Gwen wasn’t there for that.

“Sorry,” He says. He didn’t forget, he couldn’t, but-- “You were…” he stumbles over the words but he needs to say them. “You were dead.”

She flips the magazine shut. “I was.”

Was. Past tense.

“Where am I?” Peter asks her.

The bird caws, triumphant, and splits the water with a splash. A few thrashing seconds later it comes up with a fat carp between its claws. Both Gwen and Peter twist toward the commotion, the waves falling heavier upon the shore for a moment, and then turn back.

Gwen is smiling again, softer. “We’re here.” She says, a nonanswer.

Peter is across the grass in moments. Her face is in one hand, a thumb tracing the ridge of her cheek, fingers hooking on the hinge of her jaw. The other hand goes behind her hair down into the cradle of her skull, sliding downward toward the top of her spinal cord, dipping into her shirt to test the torsion, to feel the bones and juts in her spine.

Beneath his fingers she is soft, warm skin as always, her bones an edge of hardness. Her breath expands her lungs and his hand comes up with the movement of her diaphragm. Her hair tickles the back of his shooters.

He digs his thumb into the top knob in her spine just to _feel_ it and she catches his glove. “Peter.” She says in a low voice, serious and slow. Voice full of something unnamable and familiar all the same. “I’m okay.” And she is. Her bones are right.

Gwen threads her fingers through Peter’s. Her hand hooks into the one of Peter’s that he still has on her jaw. She brings it off her face and to her lips and says against the pads of his fingertips, “I’m okay.” She he opens his palm and kisses him there too, and then yanks a little, and gets the center of his wrist, right where his shooters sit.

Peter is drowning, the lake still rippling from the bird’s disturbance, his heart roaring in his ears, every place she is touching him tingling in cold fire. He wriggles his wrist from her grip, catches her chin, flips up the mask, and dives down and kisses her.

It’s like it always was, familiar and warm. Gwen responds, tilting her head, her neck to accommodate for the way Peter is still looming over her. Her hair falls backwards a little and Peter gets a hand in it, curdles his fingers through the curls and just feels the hot warmth of her skull beneath his hand, her pulse ratcheting beneath him, her breath into his mouth. He surprises himself--so much to say, so much to tell her--he’s imagined this a million times and instead of anything he thought he’d do, he’s working his way into her mouth just to _taste_ her again. To feel her move against him, her roaming hands. He thinks for a moment, feeling like his brain is dropping a million miles an hour into an abyss, that he could do anything in this moment. Could waste this whole time just feeling her against him, let the dew dry in the warming sun as she took him apart again.

Peter breaks the kiss because he can’t breathe. She steadies her free hand just to the right and beneath his beating heart, and it’s just one hand, but the entirety of Gwen had curled up and forced her way underneath his ribcage a long time ago, probably before he even told her he loved her.

They’re silent for a moment, still. The sun rises a little higher.

And then Gwen slides back to sit up more, and Peter follows his cue, sits down next to her.

He hugs her tightly, perhaps too tightly, but she smells the same, she tastes the same, her heart beats.

“What is this?” Peter asks her gruffly. He still feels that same unbridled desperation as he’d had when she was kissing him, but he finds, upon examining it, that it’s not a hot fervency or a primal lust that’s gone years unfulfilled that drives it. It is instead some sort of broken up happiness, like finding a photograph unharmed in the wreckage of the fire. “How long do I get?”

“Just shut up and enjoy it.” She says into his hairline.

The dry hope in her voice snorts a wet laugh out of Peter. His hands meet at the small of her back, cupping her spine together. He forces them apart to her hips, up her ribs, counting them.

“Stop feeling me up, Peter.” She says again, and this time when he laughs, she laughs with him.

“I can’t help it.” He says, hands smoothing their way up and coming to rest at her shoulder blades. He squeezes his eyes shut and then says, hoarsely. “I’m sorry.”

She cuts him off. Gwen grasps him by the rolled flap of the mask and yanks him back, forcing him to look at her. Her lips have puffed a little from the kiss, cheeks flushed a delicate pink, and her eyes are a watery blue, but other than that she is unharmed. She is okay.

Her eyebrows fold up, pulling with them an expansive desert within Peter’s chest, something open and throbbing. This is the physicality of a _could have been_ , and it sits raw and gaping between them.

Gwen looks at him for a long while.

Peter tells her, “I miss you.” and then, “I’m…” He looks down. Gwen yanks at his mask again so he’ll look her in the eye. “I’m sorry.”

Her face softens a little. She lets him go and he sits back against the backrest of the bench, still looking at her.

“I’m here.” She tells him.

He looks at her, incredulous. “No you’re not.”

“I’m here.” She says serenely, like she’s unaware that this isn’t _possible_.

Peter catches his breath.

She drops her head in the crook of his neck and puts a hand over his sternum, between his ribs, right into the gaping tundra of his world without her.

“How long do we have?” He asks her. She’s warm at his side.

“I don’t know.” Her hand tightens in the fabric of his suit. “Let’s just watch the sun rise.”

 

* * *

 

 

_(13 days Pre-Event)_

Spider-Man wakes up alone on a park bench in Central Park to the buzz of his cell phone.

Spider-Man does not remember falling asleep on this park bench, nor how he got here, but suddenly he’s afraid to close his eyes again.

It was a good dream, and that makes it even worse.

The sun hasn’t risen yet, but the world is a lighter blue than it should be.

He’s just sitting up, reluctant, panicky, when he realizes that it was his phone that woke him up. He ignores it for a moment, and then sighs.

There are two notifications, and the world goes wrong all at once.

The first is an Avengers call, sent three hours ago.

The second is from Wade, sent now.

Peter thumbs open the lock screen and checks Wade’s message first, trying to digest things in the order of how easy he thinks it’ll be. He rubs his eyes and waits for them to clear to read the text.

What he reads sparks a new kind of panic in him. The message is a simple “SOS” but Wade rarely texts him that, not unless he needs to. Usually it’s a joke, or some sort of meme that doesn’t even make sense.

Spider-Man takes a moment to take a deep breath in.

Peter replies, “How bad? Can you make it to mine?”

In the minute he waits, he looks at the Avengers notification. A call to assemble. It’s 5:09 in the morning.

Wade responds with a minus sign. Negative. This message is followed closely by a notification that he’s now sharing his location with Peter.

Peter doesn’t hesitate or take a moment to respond. He’s off the bench in an instant, doing his best to forget whatever the hell his subconscious just came up with.  Maps says Wade is a couple blocks south of the Bronx, so Peter swings north. While he swings he types a message to Stark. Can’t make it. Send a debrief over encoded channel. Will meet up with you soon.

His weight feels heavy with exhaustion, and even the wind won’t clear his mind. Instead, it’s racing like it’s trying to win some sort of prize. Tony replies. Affirmative. They're on reach and react status, which means it’s another Raft thing. Fuck.

By the time he gets close enough to snap off the webs and start waking, ten minutes have passed. His heart isn’t slowing down.

Peter takes it one thing at a time. Forget Avengers, forget Gwen, focus here. Peter doesn’t want to find Wade dead in an alley somewhere. The thought is unsettling.

Though not dead, Peter does find him in an alley. He’s slumped near a dumpster against a brick wall, holding his guts in with one arm.

“Holy shit dude.” Peter comes to a stop at the mouth of the alley. His stomach is empty, but it rolls. (Gwen Stacy sits on the bench. “I was,” She says. I was dead.)

“Hey!” Wade says brightly, an obvious farce. His free hand is dug so hard into his thigh it looks painful. “You made it! It’s almost dawn, I figured you’d be asleep.”

“Wade--”

Wade cocks his head, “Can I buy you a drink?” He forces, too loudly.  Peter follows his gaze. There’s a tiny dive bar across the street. It’s closed for the night, its neon signs dark in the impending day.

Peter smacks his lips, his mouth gone dry. “Are you going to heal or are you going to--”

Wade lets out a tiny gasp, cutting him off. “Argh, die. Yeah, definitely die.”

Peter is in over his head. The Avengers call was from three hours ago. How long was he asleep? “I don’t--” _think I can do this right now_ , he wants to say. But he doesn’t.

“What can I do?” Peter walks closer to him, and sinks to his knees next to him. He doesn’t know what else to say. He feels like something inside him is reaching up from the surface, but can’t explain what it is.

“I don’t like to--” Wade says, and then Peter watches his face closes off. He was probably about to say something telling or vulnerable, neither of which Wade ever is. It brings something bitter to the back of Peter’s mind, and the Bitter thing and the Unexplainable thing link together to make a new, Worse thing.

He’s only ever seen Wade die once before, and it was brutal. It was awful. Wade still lives but Peter wears those memories like brands.

“I’m here now, okay?” He says, quietly. His mouth tastes like he’s hungover.

“Yeah, not blind, dingus.” Wade spits back, shuddery, strained.

“How’d this happen?”

Wade takes a shallow breath. “Purse snatchers are apparently--augh” he cuts off, “Shit, stomach acid is a real bitchy way to die.” He cuts off, choking a little on air. “That’s goin on the list of Never Again. Alongside--” He breathes in heavy, “Alongside, like, turducken and, uh, sleeping with people’s moms.”

“Purse snatchers?” Assemble call was three hours ago, while Peter was dreaming and Wade was, apparently, fighting petty crime?

“Oh yeah, right, they’re apparently a lot cooler than they used to be. Ninja purse snatchers.” Wade coughs again, and there’s something wet in it.

Peter wants to call out this obvious lie. Purse snatchers can’t gut Wade Wilson. Not even ninja purse snatchers, and it makes Peter feel uncomfortable, like maybe Wade’s lying about other things, too.

Again, too many things at once.

For now, Peter just sighs. “You’ve slept with someone’s mom?”

Wade sputters, a laugh, a win. Unfortunately, his laughter breaks early, and turns into a wheeze, a sound Peter could recognize from space.

“Can I take your mask off?”

“Shit, dude, why?” Wade asks, not meeting his eyes.

“You’re choking on your own breath.” Peter tells him bluntly, “You gotta help yourself stop panicking.”

“I’m not--fucking--panicking.” Wade says, without enough air. “I’m just dying.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.” Peter says, and his voice softens. “I’m here now, okay? And there’s no one around but me.” Peter scootches a little closer.

Wade doesn’t respond, just sags a little against the wall, and Peter takes the affirmation. He reaches over slowly and slides the mask off. It drags over Wade’s chin, his lips, his lids, and then Peter finds Wade watching him with keen blue eyes. It reminds him of a long time ago, Wade slumped bleeding in his old college apartment, how in the midst of the panic and the grief he’d taken a moment to take note of the absurdity that that was the first time he’d seen enough of Wade to know he had blue eyes,

“Better?” Peter asks.

“No. Still dyin’” Wade says, with a hitching breath. And then, abruptly, he finishes the sentence he hadn’t completed earlier. “I don’t like doin’ this alone.”

Peter folds Wade’s mask, looking down at his hands. “I know.” His mind is elsewhere. A clocktower, a friend, a different suit.

“No, y’don’t. You don’t know.” Wade scrunches up his eyes and his mouth hangs open, wet. His breathing stops altogether, but his eyes stay scrunched, tension a coiled spring inside him. His arm jerks where he’s holding himself together.

“Wade, breathe. You’re not doing yourself any favors.” Peter tells him. “I’m here now.”

“You are.” Wade’s eyes open, widely, to meet Peter’s. “You came.”

It’s a simple sentence, spoken without much surprise or emotion, a fact. In spite of himself, Peter thinks about Ben and Gwen and his parents, and how, despite everything you ever do to make it different, dying is the one thing you have to do alone.

Even Wade has to do it alone, but he texted Peter anyway.

Peter, running on hours without sleep, Gwen heavy and mushy over his chest, abruptly feels tears spring to his eyes. For the first time tonight, this is the only thing on his mind. No Tony, no Raft, no park bench hugs. Just this. Wade’s large intestines in his fist. The wet dampness of blood in the air. He’s woozily aware of himself. Of the two of them.

“Of course I did.” Peter says, soft. “I showed up last time, didn’t I?”

“I don’t got a lotta people.” Wade says, an echo of words he once said a long time ago and now, like a suckerpunch, Peter gets it. In this moment, he feels the weight of it. Now it makes sense.

Suddenly, this is terrifying.

Suddenly this is three years worth of whatever, still left unspoken, but now in plain sight, close enough to grasp.

And Peter has Gwen on his mind.

Wade winces, and lets out a long breath, the thighs of his suit now sheening with blood.

“Hey, talk to me.” Peter says, softly, thickly,  “What’s so bad about it this time?” Wade doesn’t show pain, like he’s felt enough of it to be numb to it. This is an anomaly. It doesn’t fit within the known sphere.

“You,” Wade manages. “You.”

“I what?” Peter presses. He looks down, to where Wade still has his own thigh in a death grip. “Hey, hey, come on.” Peter says, voice going hoarse, circling Wade’s wrist with his thumb and pointer. “Stop.”

He tugs, gently, and it takes a moment before Wade’s palm loosens. Peter does the first thing he can think of, and that’s sliding his hand around and threading it through with Wade’s. Wade grips back fiercely, his hand a vice, like Peter is the only thing keeping him strapped inside his own body.

He shifts, pushing his shoulder against Wade’s and sitting next to him on the wall.

“Didja get the Avengers call?” Wade slurs, like his mouth is too heavy to make the words.

“I’m staying updated.” Peter says, just as his phone buzzes again. He’ll check it in a little bit. For now there is only this moment. You cannot die in any manner but by yourself. Peter cannot do anything but lean into Wade, feel the warmth where they’re touching. It’s not something he got with Gwen or Ben. They didn’t wake up, either.

“Just breathe, okay? Breathe and let go.” Peter tells him, a little warmly. His heartbeat has started to pick up. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

Wade makes a small noise. His grip tightens, then loosens. Peter skims his thumb down the outside of Wade’s palm.

“I got something I need to tell you.” Wade says.

“It can wait,” Peter croaks, the corners of his eyes wet. “I’ll be here.”

 

* * *

 

 

_After: Position (5 days Post-Event)_

Spider-Man marches right past the mingling people, the servers with flutes of champagne.

Tony is, as expected, the center of attention, saying, “-- _not_ a big deal when a bunch of idiots in the 60’s strap themselves to a bomb and fly to space but,” his eyes lift to meet Peter’s. He gives an imperceptible nod, his story uninterrupted, “when I do it it’s ‘dangerous’?”

“That’s very patently not what I told you.” Steve, beside him, rolls his eyes, and Peter leaves them at it, satisfied that he’s made enough of an appearance.

He leaves the room and swings into the kitchen.

As predicted, Wade is in the corner, shoving as many hors d’oeuvres as he can into any pocket he can find.

See, Peter knows him. He does. He’s in the kitchen because there isn’t anyone else in the kitchen, he’s coping with discomfort at being around such a large amount of people with food, but he’s not eating any of it because he’s particular about who he pulls his mask up in front of.

Peter knows him.

“I need to talk to you.” Peter says, and Wade starts, surprised at being found in his hiding place.

“That’s nice.” He says, his mask clear, his voice light on the disdain and heavy on the distance. Deadpool is stubborn and mean if he so chooses to be; and he’s hurt. He’s been hurt.

Peter is hurt too, but at least he’s being mature about it. “Work with me here, Wade. Don’t act like this.”

“Act like what?” He says offhand, “Hey, what catering company does Stark hire from? D’you think they make Canadian bacon?”

“You can’t just ignore me.”

“Yeah?” Wade says, sharper than before. “I believe I’ve said everything I need to say to you.” Peter clenches his jaw, unthinkingly. Fine. If that’s how this is going to be.

“Yes, I guess you did.” Peter replies coolly. Wade got cut, sure, but Peter is not yet in a position to forget what he said in that heat.

“Hah. This is a classic. You’re trying to pin this on me.” Wade replies. “I feel like I’m reading one of the early comics.” He smashes a baby cream puff between two fingers, white filling spilling over his gloves. “It’s all the Big Bad Deadpool’s fault.” Wade shakes his hand, and the mini pastry splats to the counter.

“Believe it or not, I don’t actually like fighting with you.”

“Are you serious right now? I can’t tell if that was a joke.”

“No, Wade, not everything in _my_ life is a joke.”

“Ho ho!” Wade exclaims. “Here we go. Iguedala to Curry, back to Iguedala, Iguedala up for the layup--”

“Wade--”

“OH blocked by James!” Wade announces, “Lebron James with the rejection!”

“Dammit, can we just have a mature conversation?”

“Yeah, cuz we’re good at that.” Wade mutters. Wade snags one last little cocktail wiener. “Look, I already pay for cable. There’s enough drama there.” He says, squeezing the two ends of the wiener together. It jets from his hands and hits the wallpaper before hitting to the floor.

“Well, this is your drama, so grow up.”

Wade cocks his head, and his next words come a little clipped, a little nasally. “Kim, there’s people that are dying.”

At that moment, one of the servers from the party comes in with an empty tray. She gives them a look, as if wondering why Spider-Man isn’t hanging out with the rest of the Avengers. They’re celebrating, after all.

“Look,” He says, lowering his voice and stepping into Wade’s personal space. “There is clearly something that you do not understand, and...” Peter trails off helplessly. He doesn’t know what to say anymore. He feels like he hasn’t slept for days, and he’s so desperate, so alone and scared that he just…

God, it’s like sophomore year all over again. It’s like he’s losing her _every day_ , watching the weight of her gravity crack her spine. Peter sees that all laid out in front of him again, and he feels his face drain of color behind his mask.

Oh no.

He could just say it, just spill it, but it’s looking more and more like Wade doesn’t want to hear it.

“Just hear me out.” Peter says, finally. Wade is steel and stone and Peter can feel his anger, like it’s a palatable thing. “I really need to talk to you. I haven’t been honest with you.” He adds, like an afterthought. “Not that you’ve been particularly honest with me either, but…”

“Peter,” Wade says with a low voice, unforgiving, and Peter feels like he’s been strangled, “I need you to back off. Right now.”

“I need you to _listen_ to me.” He says, accusatory.

“You’re kidding me, right? I thought you said not everything was a joke to you?” Wade laughs. “Get outta here with that bullshit. All I’ve done is listen to you. And I heard you, loud and clear.”

“Don’t pretend to know what I was thinking. I think we’ve well established that you had zero clue there.” Peter says. And now they’re arguing about it. At least arguing is better than not talking about it at all. “You were the one that left.” He continues, and the zing of hurt that wraps around his words settles in the air between them.

“I know where I’m not actually wanted.”

“I told you point blank that you were.” Peter says, voice a little high.

Wade works his jaw. Peter knows him. Wade doesn’t know what it’s like to be wanted. It’s easier for him to retreat from it, just like it’s easy for Peter to retreat from the things that scare him.

Like this.

“I am really really pissed off at you.” Peter tells him.

“Get in line.” Wade replies.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say to you, you--”

“Oh I have a pretty good guess, probably along the lines of--”

“-- just jumped to a conclusion and--

“--sorry, can’t right now, they’re playing the third episode of season seven of _That 70’s Show_ on rerun, can’t miss it--”

“--you overreacted.” Peter declares.

“I overreacted?” Wade states, perfectly bland and bold and Peter knows he made a misstep. “I _overreacted_? The fuck do you think I am?”

“No, no that’s not what I--I’m glad that you--” Shit, this is going just as wrong as it did five days ago. “Fuck, just let me explain it to you.”

“Oh don’t insult me, Spidey, I already know--”

“No, you don’t. You made an assumption.” Peter snaps, cutting him off entirely. “I wanted you to stay.”

Deadpool’s face goes blank, so eerily emotionless that Peter can see right through it, right into everything Wade is trying so hard not to share.

He doesn’t even touch Peter’s statement.

Instead, he turns away. “Nice party, Spider-Man.” He says, making the exit play yet again.  “Congratulations on the win.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FAQ:
> 
> Who is Iguedala and Curry and James  
> -wade Wilson stans an underdog and thus stans cle don’t @ me
> 
> [link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zd62MxKXp8)  
>    
> What is American vandal  
> -a really rad netflix show. So so good.
> 
> Why does wade pay for cable  
> -soley for the kardashians.  
> [link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7D5oONDkIQ)
> 
> What about morning in the burned house  
> -*mariah carey voice* i can’t read suddenly, i don’t know
> 
> Why did you post this today?  
> Two year anniversary of KR babey
> 
> What are you learning about in school right now  
> Oh dear god. I don’t know. I got a 90 on a midterm and i don’t even know what half the symbols i wrote down were
> 
> Sneak peak of up next?  
> This is only a few chapters. Nice try


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sorry. I don’t mean to be morose.” Peter waves his hand, like he’s sweeping away a disaster. “I have on good authority that I’m supposed to be ‘happy’ by order of one dead Gwen Stacy.”

 

 

 

_Then: An additional variable (12 days pre Event)_

 

Tony is not paying attention. “Uh,” he says, through the mechanized whir of the Iron Man suit. “Is he--”

Peter steps to the side, drawing Iron Man’s attention from over the ledge of the roof to the middle of it, where Spider-Man is standing. It’s shaping up to be a warm morning, the sun still far from rising, but Peter has his arms crossed because the skin beneath his suit feels too cold.

“What’s up?” Spider-Man asks, too casual and too loud. Iron Man watches him a second and then looks back down over the ledge to the alley splattered in blood.

“Is he dead?” Iron Man asks, ignoring the fact that Peter spoke first. Down below the roof where they are standing, Wade is beginning to twitch, the smell of regrowth like rot in the air.

Peter has to force his jaw to unstick. “Yes.”

“Were you two--” A pause. “Together?”

“Isn’t there an emergency going on?”

Absently, Tony says. “One that you mostly slept through.” He paces a few steps away from Peter to peer over the ledge, like Wade is an exhibit at the zoo,  “Wait, you weren’t asleep with--”

“Tony.” Peter says, and maybe there’s something in Spidey’s voice that draws pause because Iron Man finally looks back over.

“Alright.” he holds up his hands, as if Peter is being touchy. Which. Maybe he is. “I’m just saying.”

“You’re not saying anything.” Peter snaps, kicking some loose gravel across the roof. “There is nothing _to_ say. It’s Deadpool.”

Five stories below, Wade gives his first rasp of breath.

 Tony snorts. “Whatever,” He says, and pops the faceplate, ambling back over to where Spider-Man is standing. “Wrecking Crew was in Staten Island.”

“Wrecking Crew was locked in--”

“The Raft, I know. Also, Slayback was in the Bronx”

“Slayback was in--”

“Underoos, catch up.” Tony glances back again. “Looks like Deadpool caught the business end of his,” Tony trails off, wiggling his fingers in a vaguely threatening way.

“He told me it was purse snatchers.”

Tony opens his mouth just to close it. “He say anything else?” He asks, too naturally to actually be neutral.

Peter’s throat starts the slow burn like an oven starting a preheat, the second time tonight. His breath catches against the lump, his heart beating in his ears. It’s too overwhelming. All of it at once, like waves on a shore, eroding, eroding, eroding.

There’s so much _here_ , so much swirling around. So Peter says. “Tony, I’m not up for an elaborate super villain plot today.” Or ever, for that matter. Eight months back and it’s been nothing much more than keeping the neighborhood safe. Insofar it’s only been stopping the kind of crime that used to keep him up at night, as if Gwen’s death wasn’t enough reason to have a horrible case of insomnia.

Sleep and an anxiety disorder have an interesting relationship, one that recent events has ever so carefully outlined. Some people grind their teeth or sleepwalk, Peter just has nightmares. Vivid ones. Gwen is turning into a ghost, a sinister artifact collecting dust, serving no purpose other than the terrible aura she gives off.

Peter has to struggle to remember her breathing.

Peter adds, just to pretend like there’s some levity at five in the morning after a terrible nightmare, after Wade’s death, after his feelings had been wrought from him like iron wrought from steel. “I am a small baby and I need a nap.”

“Look I’m just--”

“Spider-Man is, oh,” he looks at his gloved left wrist, “Eight months old. Small. Baby.”

Tony squints at him. “That’s a technicality.”

“Either tell me what’s really going on or leave me alone.”

“Can’t tell if you’re pouting because you’re being serious or you’re just trying to convince me--”

“Tony!” Peter says, shrill. The roar of waves heats his ears. He feels like there’s the sharp edge of a chip caught in his soft palate. 

There is a long pause.

“You good, kid?” Tony asks, softly. There is a lot behind his words.

Peter digs his thumbs into his eyes. “Yup!”

“Alright.” Tony replies, after Peter’s thumbs have made technicolor neon rings against the darkness of his eyelids. He blinks his eyes back open to see Tony has switched the faceplate back down, and he’s looking back over at Deadpool.

“Cap says we can contain it anyway.” Tony mutters, to himself.

“What?”

“Nothin’”

“Are you benching me?”

“No.” And then. “Do I have to?”

Peter swallows, and it burns. “I need to stay in it, Tony. You know that.”

Iron Man’s face is emotionless. “If we were benching you, it wouldn’t be my call.”

Wait. What? 

“Who’s would it?” Peter demands. “Steve?”

“No, just--” Tony swears. “Deadpool is awake.” His boot thrusters power up, quick and hot.

“Hey! You can’t just--”  
“Turn your phone ringer on. Then you’ll be awake for the emergencies.” Tony shouts from above, and then he’s too far away to hear.

* * *

 

 

 

_Then: Hypothesis (12 days pre Event)_

 

Peter swings by the nearest McDonalds and buys Wade a McGriddle. Wade eats it with his mask pulled most of the way back on, the two of them in not-so-comfortable silence. Peter stands across the alley, across from where Wade hasn’t moved since getting gutted, since he died clutching Peter’s hand.

It makes Peter feel sticky, too humid, just the thought of it.

“What was it you wanted to tell me?” Peter asks him, arms crossed in front of his chest. Defensive mode. Today sucks. Peter can still feel the imprint of Wade’s fingers between his own.

“Hmm?” Wade says. “Oh, yeah, did you see who got fired on _Below Deck: Mediterranean_?”

“Wade.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Wade says. “My tummy hurts.”

Peter swallows. It’s been almost twenty-four hours since he got decent sleep. “Why did Tony just tell me that you got bested by Slayback?”

“Kirk Lazarus was here?” Wade says, too toneless to be curiosity. 

“Please, dude.” Peter drops his crossed arms. He doesn’t continue, feeling his throat swell again. Fuck, this is the worst. He feels swollen and too red, like he’d been stung by a dozen bees and everything itches and aches. “Just be honest with me. I need you, of all people, to be honest with me.”

Wade considers this a moment over his last bite of sandwich. He finally jerks his head. “Come over here.”

Peter hesitates, and crosses over to perch next to him, leaning his back against the dumpster. In the slim silence that follows, he rolls a discarded can of Monster beneath his foot.

“It was Slayback _and_ T-Ray if that makes you feel any better.”

“It does not.” Peter says. “Wade.”

 Wade crumples the wrapper in his hand and slides the rest of his mask down his face. Despite the impersonality of the gesture, his next words are anything but.

“Do you trust me?”

Peter rolls the Monster can closer and then farther away again. It takes him a minute to respond. “I mean, as much as you trust me.”

Wade does not like this response, “Don’t make me laugh, Spider-Man.” His gruff, rattling chain of a voice makes no dip, just maintains its deadpan porosity. As if he is being humorous, though they both know he’s not. “My tummy already hurts.”

Peter pushes off from the dumpster. He thinks about Gwen, voice trembling, cold fingers underneath the mask. He had allowed her to remove it, and he had allowed everything that came next.

Wade had inserted himself where he wasn’t originally welcome. Trust is a complex thing. It grows like something malignant, sometimes.

“You’ve been there for me a lot.” Peter says, seriously and also off-hand, unconvinced even by his own voice. “I owe you one.” Any intimacy from before, any vestiges left over from the whispers on a deathbed, seemed to have died with Wade.

With the fist holding the wrapper, Wade bounces the fleshy part of his fisted hand off the brick wall once, twice, three times. “Yup!” He offers. “Yup, totally. Walk me home?” Wade asks, the offer clearing his voice from whatever had crossed into it. Peter wonders if he somehow did something wrong in the last thirty seconds, and has a sinking sensation that he has.

Self-awareness has never been his greatest character strength, let’s all be really fucking honest.

Wade is still talking, “...and then you can awkwardly lean in on the front porch and my dad will flick the lights so we’ll jump apart. And then one of those long line things that break up the text.”

“I gotta work.” Peter blurts. “Uh, soon.” He swallows, gains some gumption. “So if you aren’t going to tell me what happened here, I think I should leave. Leave it up to you, I guess.”

“Christ,” Wade breathes out, and oh, this a real Genuine Wade Wilson Moment. Two in one night. That has to be some kind of record. 

“Fuck off then, Peter.” He says. The velocity of his voice surprises Peter in the worst way. “I’ll call you when I have some utility.”

Peter pushes his thumbs into his lids again and lets the last statement sink in between them. Then, without another word, he turns and leaves Wade be, nothing but indignant protest in his posture.

* * *

 

 

 

_Now: A Rudimentary Collision (5 Days Post- Event)_

 

“Christ, Peter, are you fucking drunk?” MJ crosses her arms in front of herself, the splash of light from the hallway highlighting the curves of her body underneath her too small t-shirt and pajama shorts. Her shoulder presses against her apartment door, cracked open just enough for Peter to stare just beyond her, into the dark depths of her home.

“I had. A wine.” He slurs. “A wine.” God she looks good tonight. Plus she usually keeps cheese in the fridge. So like. That’s a plus.

“A wine.” She repeats. “It’s like nine-thirty at night. And you are not a lightweight.”

“I don’t drink.” Peter says. Except he did drink tonight. After Wade left the party, he'd commandeered a half dozen bottles of Stark's wine and went to town. “Can I come in?”

MJ adjusts her arms, positioning her breasts the in cradle of her forearms. “Should I be worried about you?” 

“I used to drink when I missed her.” He announces loudly, rolling the taste of tang and grape around on his tongue. “S’why I don’t drink anymore. Cuz I don’t miss her.”

MJ’s mouth flattens, and she steps aside, letting him into her apartment. He brushes past her, and she gives him the flattest, most unimpressed look she can muster. 

“Sorry. I don’t mean to be morose.” Peter waves his hand, like he’s sweeping away a disaster. “I have on good authority that I’m supposed to be ‘happy’ by order of one dead Gwen Stacy.”

On MJ’s kitchen table is a couple of marked up scripts. Playing on her laptop is the latest news. It’s late enough that the cycle is recycled. Spider-Man. The Avengers. It hurts in the abstract way it’s been hurting for six days now. He watches the colors swirl in front of his eyes, not quite there in the room and not quite there under the sun in Queens, either.

MJ closes her laptop, sweeping up the scripts with it. “You’re allowed to miss her.” She says. “And you’re allowed to not miss her.”

Peter takes off his sweatshirt, tossing it on the table. “You got cheese?”  His buzz waning, he heads to her fridge where she has a half-empty bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon on the lower shelf. He uncorks it and yanks a dirty mug from the sink, filling it with the rest of the bottle. “No cheese.”

“Peter. What are you doing here?” MJ asks, watching him with weary eyes. Distinctly, he registers his own behavior are reminiscent of how he acted when he was in one of his bad stages, after Gwen was still fresh in the ground. 

Good news, though. This isn’t about Gwen. Well. Not really.

“See, there’s the thing. I’m having trouble.” He slurps, loudly. “Mary Jane, I hate cabs. It’s like drinking vinegar.”

“Peter.”

“Right. The thing. I can’t do both at the same time. Miss her. Not miss her. I can’t do it, it’s changed me. I’m different. I can’t help it. Yknow. I can’t balance it. So,” he says, “D’you wanna have sex?”

“Peter?” She says, alarmed.

“I’ve thought about it.”

“You, um, have?”

“Course.” He says, shrugging. “I gotta move on somehow.”

MJ rolls her eyes. “I wouldn’t call that moving on, champ.”

“Well. I’ll just blow it with anyone else.”

“Blow it?”

“Yknow. Blow it. Do not pass Go. Do not collect 200 monopoly dollars.” He takes another pull, and sets the mug down, some of the wine sloshing over the sides. ”We didn’t drink in high school. We’ve never had drunk sex. MJ, it’s _fun_. But you can’t really be drunk. More like tipsy. Or just, like, a glass in.”

“Peter--”

“I used to drink when I missed her, it didn’t work then, but it works a little now.” Peter says, loudly. “I can’t do it, like, longterm. I can’t not miss her. Nobody is going to get that. I’m not gonna be able to trust anybody to get that.” he crosses the kitchen in a few steps, and looms at four inches taller than her, too close for comfort. ”Not even the people I expected to get it.” His voice sounds kinda croaky on that last part. Maybe he swallowed something wrong. It feels a little bit like he did.

MJ's face is doing this weird, loose thing, like she’s sad, but there’s nothing for her to be sad about? Her eyes look too shiny.

“Peter.” MJ says, measured, craning to look up at him. “What the _literal_ fuck.”

He lowers his voice. “I am obtaining consent. There’s not a whole lot not to get here.”

She places her hands on his chest, clicks onto her tiptoes, and says, very very unkindly, _“Are you having an aneurysm_.”

Peter pauses. “I don’t believe so. Wouldn’t it hurt?”

She pushes away from him, skirting around him to get to the wine in the dirty mug. She lifts it to her own lips and swallows a hearty sip. “Holy God, I didn’t think it would take you four years to be a clingy ex. Did something happen?”

“No.”

“With who?” And then, “ _Peter_ , are you _dating_ again?”

“No!”

Her excitement immediately dims. “So you want to have sex? Just. For no reason.”

“I can’t--” his tongue lags behind his mind, making his words heavy. “I have,” he concentrates on his words to enunciate them very clearly. “Intimacy issues.”

The moment he'd discovered that was with MJ, a long time ago, lying on her bed. She was visiting from Hollywood, where she still lived at the time, Peter was on the outs with May, Gwen had been dead six months, and Peter had just opened up to Wade about  _everything_. The intimacy issues were not a hard conclusion to make, back then, but right now they're kinda getting in the way.

She leans against her window, the meld of blue moonlight and orange sodium streetlight making her look monstrous in the evening darkness. “You’re kinda scaring me, Peter.”

“Sorry.” He says, “Sorry, I just--” He makes grabby hands for the wine and she hands it to him. “I can’t do it again, I don’t think.” He pauses, and then decides. “Yeah, it’s not gonna happen.”

She snorts and rolls her eyes as she turns her back on him, heading toward her couch. “You always do that.”

“Do what?” He demands, following after her.

“You did it with me, and I think you probably tried your damndest with Gwen.”

“Do what?” 

She reaches the kitchen table and sweeps his sweatshirt over her head. “Gatekeep your own happiness, you idiot.” Her head pops out the other side. “You are so fucking terrified of your own self that you do anything you can to retreat from it. It wouldn’t kill you to be nice to yourself every once in a while.”

“What d’you know.” He mutters, stung.

She crosses her arms, a sudden violence in her eyes. “I _loved_ you Peter Parker.” 

“Yeah, and we couldn't work. I couldn’t even do right by you.”

Her response is so fast it’s as if Peter hadn’t even talked. “Your guilt,” She says, tight, like punctuation between every word. “Has eaten you alive.” And then, “It it’s honestly been garbage to watch everyone in your life get eaten up by it too.”

Peter looks at her a while. Finally, he licks his dry lips and says. “That’s not fair.” And then his eyebrows fold of their own accord, face screwing up like he’s choking on a whole lemon. “MJ that’s really not fair.”

She looks skyward and mouths something. “I know.” She replies. “Lord knows I know.” She doesn't apologize. They both know it's the truth. Peter loves too hard, and loses too big. It consumes him, and everyone around him.

Peter nods, and gulps another sip of bad wine. The apartment feels too small around him. Maybe it’s been too long since he’s had an anxiety attack. Maybe there’s one building. It’s hard to tell--he’s been so healthy, since before this _thing_ , since before his subconscious decided he--and Wade by extension--needed to remember to suffer. 

Around the rim of the mug, Peter says “I can’t do it again.” An echo of what he’d said earlier, but delivered much smaller, full of something more.

MJ sighs and swallows, dwarfed by his sweatshirt. She curls her hands into the cuffs. “Spider-Man got back out there.” She says, gesturing to the now-closed laptop that had the news story on it. “I think you should too. It’s gonna hurt, Petey. But you gotta try.”

He downs the rest of the mug. “Spider-Man is the best of me.” And then adds. "And the worst.”

She arches a perfect eyebrow at him. “I just want you to behappy, Peter. And so would Gwen.”

It’s an echo of the same statement Wade had made, five days ago, almost down to the hour. “I’m tired of losing things, MJ.”

MJ sighs. “I know, Pete.” She moves around the table to lean her forehead on his arm. “But you haven’t lost everything. You can’t live your whole life as if--” She trails off, but Peter can fill in the rest of the sentence.

“I think I already blew it.” Peter says, rotating his arm to swing around MJ’s shoulder, so her face is in his chest.

“I’m sorry.” She says, pauses, and then, “Not sorry enough to have sex with you.” She says, and it startles a drunk giggle out of him, even though it his lungs feel flooded.

* * *

 

 

 

_Then: An Estimate of Velocity (6 days pre Event)_

 

Peter’s eyes are glassy and glazed, cheek smushed against the couch, completely sedentary, when his senses raise the hairs on the back of his neck, just enough to bring him back to consciousness as his window eases open.

It’s Wade, fully suited, sans one katana, carrying what looks like one of the kooky sling bags middle schoolers take to class in one hand and a jar of olives in the other.

The last time they’d talked was in the alley. The last Raft breakout had been that day, as well as the last weird Gwen-dream. It’s nice to see him now, healthy, guts all in the right place. It makes Peter’s heart beat a little offhand, just the thought of it.

“Are you done being mad at me?” Peter asks.

Wade sets down the jar of olives on the windowsill and drops the sling bag. “About three things I am absolutely certain of.” He cracks the olive jar with a gloved finger, “Edward is a vampire.” He screws the lid on loose and tips the jar over outside the window, loosing the juices on Peter’s downstairs neighbors’ window box full of sage. “Second, there is a part of him that thirsts for my blood.” He moves with his olives over toward the kitchen, out of easy sight. Peter doesn’t move his head, just lets Wade’s voice surround him in his space. “And third, that I am unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.”

Peter grunts. “And how long have you been seventeen?”

Wade barks a laugh, just once. 

Peter sits up wearily, blinking exhaustion out of his eyes. “What’s with the olives?” Wade is not eating them. He has instead pulled a laptop from the sling bag and has it open and running on Peter’s kitchen table. “What’s with the laptop?”

“Are you even awake right now?” Wade returns. “Gorgeous, you look roughed up.”

Peter collapses back into his original position, too tired of leaning over the couch. His sternum prickles a little at Wade’s words “Does it matter?”

“Yeah. I’m horny. Came over here to watch you sleep.”

“No more Edward Cullen jokes.” Peter sours. 

“Unbelievable.” Wade says. “What about Snowden?”

“No. I’ll allow the occasional Murphy, though.”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“Drive a hard something.” Peter mumbles into the fabric of his couch.

“You good fam? I didn’t quite catch that? It sounds like you were being cool, which you aren’t, so I would be worried.” Wade says, “What are you watching?”

“It’s two in the morning, Wade. I’m watching literally whatever.”

“Hmm.” There’s a shift, and the remote eases from his hands. The TV gets put on a lower volume. A finger traces the shell of his ear. “I stand by what I said.”

Peter shifts, turning his head. Wade withdraws his finger, so when Peter rolls over they’re not touching, and the only thing Peter is staring at is the calmness of Wade's suited torso and face.

“And what is that?” Peter asks, voice stringy and rough. His chest is alight.

“Rough.” Wade says, low, and Peter entertains the perfectly wicked thought of Wade’s hands back on his skin. “Gorgeous.”

Peter blinks heavily. “You should take off your gloves.” He blurts, and then to cover himself. “I don’t understand why you always gotta be so uncomfortable.”

Wade’s hands slide off the back of the couch, out of sight. “I think you need some sleep, buddy.”

“I am amenable to that suggestion.” Peter’s eyes are already closing.

“I’ll go ahead and put on something good.”

“Define ‘good’” There’s a telling silence. “Wade, no more Garfield.”

“If you’re gonna disrespect the Garfield movie one more time--”

“--just not sure how you can like lasagna _that_ much--”

“--I’m gonna kick the shit out of you, Spidey or not.”

Peter smiles into the couch, eyes still closed. “I could end you.” He shifts a little, shirt riding up as he extends a leg over the side of the couch. It feels nice. “After my nap.”

“Want me to warm a bottle for you?”

“Only if it’s whiskey.”

“Ha. You don’t drink.” Wade replies. He picks up Peter’s legs for a second, and then drops them onto something warm and fleshy. Oh. His lap. The TV sound changes as Wade queues up Hulu. “You want an olive?”

Peter doesn’t acknowledge that. “Are you gonna put on ANTM?”

“No.” Wade replies, contrite. From the speakers, Tyra Banks says _you wanna be on top_ , and Wade revises. “Yeah.”

“What cycle?” Peter isn’t sure he could open his eyes if he tried. He can hear too much static in his ears.

“Twelve.”

“I finished that one when you were in Egypt.”

“Yeah, but I was in Egypt.” Wade’s hand comes around Peter’s ankle. For a moment, the world spins around, like hot clothes in a dryer. The leather of his gloves feels like sandpaper against his skin, as Wade eases his fingers just inside the bottom hem of Peter's pajamas. “You’re such a hater.”

“I’ll spoil it for you.” Peter shifts, pressing his mouth into the couch. Wade draws a slow circle over his ankle. “Don’t think I won’t.” He tries, but the words get tangled.

“What was that, Kermit?” Wade digs his thumb into Peter’s ankle for a second, and resumes the circle. “Shuddup, will ya? The goddess is talking.”

“Wait.” Peter hums. “I want an olive.”

Wade laughs. “Fuck off, buddy.” And then, like a sucking vortex, that’s the last thing Peter remembers.

When his eyes open again, he hasn’t moved, but Wade is no longer next to him on the couch. Peter hums into the darkness for a second, enjoying the fringes of sleep, when Wade’s gravel voice rolls into his ears like thunder. “..can’t do that right now.”

A pause.

“I don’t understand why this is my job. I mean I lost a katana today. I’m sort of an idiot. I think it’s buried in some other merc’s chest but I don’t know--”

An angry voice interrupts him, coming out fuzzy, as if through a phone receiver. “...one he’s not going to be mad at.”

Wade’s voice lowers, “Oh, he’s not going to be mad.” There’s a sound, like typing. "Not even a little."

Peter focuses, but his senses are offline after such a deep sleep. It still clings to him. “...trusts…”

“Paul Avery, I just asked you for a detailed list on Spider-Man’s rogues gallery, and you are not my boss. I know that’s a wild concept for a CEO, but even Elon could not pay me enough for this kinda bullshit. Wack.”

Peter perks up, eyes fluttering open, senses coming a little more online. A tinny voice from inside the phone says. “You know I’m right.”

“It’s not going to work.”

“Don’t you know what...doing?”

“Yeah. I mean, really the answer is no, and this is totally gonna end up fucking me over in the next chapter. You get that right?”

Peter must make some kind of noise, because Wade makes a hasty goodbye, and then starts typing on the computer. Research? Is he taking a hit? And why would Peter’s enemies be relevant to his hits? And who is Paul Avery?

Wade hasn’t killed anybody in a long time.

Peter is tired and heavy and way too old for secrets. So, after he decides enough time has passed, he calls, “Wade?”

A pause. “Mmhmm.”

“Still here?”

“Yeah. You’ve been out for a while.” Peter sits up, peering at him over the couch. He’s set up at the kitchen table with a small laptop, covered in Hello Kitty stickers.

“What are you doing?”

Wade hesitates. “Iron Flunky sent a spreadsheet over about Raft breakouts. We’re all supposed to try to make connections. Come see.”

Peter groans, and lifts himself off the couch. His own apartment feels like a small, liminal space, though the walk feels like it stretches out into the infinite. Fuck, how long was he asleep? His head feels heavy. He makes it around the couch before he has to stop, perching on it and kicking one foot over the other.

“Were you on the phone?” Peter asks.

“Yeah. Your boss has a lot of interesting ideas with how to solve this crisis.”

Peter licks over his mossy teeth, his mouth dry. “Okay.” He says. Wade's response sounds like a lie.

Just as Peter is thinking that, Wade’s phone dings with a text. They both look at it for a moment, and then back to each other. 

Peter crosses his arms. “What are you still doing here?” It comes out a little more stark than he intends. Wade is still looking at him.

He cocks his head, leaning back in his chair. Peter notices his phone light up next to the computer. Again. In the middle of the night. 

Peter looks back at Wade, who is now actively watching him rather than the Excel sheet.

“What?” Peter asks, mouth croaking into a yawn.

Wade hesitates a moment and then his hands come together in his lap. He tugs his right glove from his pointer, middle finger, pinky, and draws it off. Then, he digs his bare right thumb underneath his left glove, and pulls it off inside out. His hands are pale.

Peter looks back at Wade’s face, and watches his hands unclasp the mask and fold it off. Wade has a strong nose, parted lips. His expression is almost blank.

Peter sees the offer for what it is, and fear takes a chunk out of his chest.

It’s like they are caught in each other’s gravity, eye contact sudden and hard, and Peter’s arms --of a 4 am volition--part from where they are crossed. He curls his hands around the backrest of the couch and rocks forward, more weight on his feet.

Wade scrapes his chair out and stands. He says. “You’re exhausting just to look at, you know?”

Peter swallows. His hands dig tighter into the couch. He doesn’t want Wade to come closer, but he also does. It always feels like the void between them is an increasing darkness, and maybe Peter is still healthy enough to acknowledge he doesn't want it to be that way.

“Sorry.” Peter says, instead of literally anything else he could be saying. Like stop. Like come here.

Close enough now to touch, Wade does just that. His hand comes to Peter’s neck, thumb just on the swell of his jaw. Peter flexes it, feeling equally claustrophobic and like he could absorb Wade, if he just tried.

“You look rough, Gorgeous.” Wade murmurs, just as before, but Peter’s neck is alive with the warmth. Without Peter noticing, Wade’s other thumb is at the corner of his mouth.

It dips in, just a smudge, and Peter says, “You gonna push this right now?”

“Is that an issue?”

“Just curious.” Wade’s thumb rubs down Peter’s lower lip. Peter closes his eyes into it. “It seems like something neither of us were going to entertain.”

Wade snorts. “Peter, I entertain it.” Wade says, in such a serious way that Peter’s eyes flutter open. Wade’s thumb departs his lips, presses briefly beneath Peter’s left eye, and then drops away. “It’s just that you don’t.”

Breathless, eyes watery, Peter says, “Tell me something.”

“Anything.”

Peter catches Wade’s fingers in his own hand, eases the hand from his neck. His finger dips down the cracked scar between his largest knuckle to the back of Wade’s hand. “About these.”

Wade’s hand flexes, fists, and withdraws. 

Wade says, finally. “You don’t want me to push this right now.”

“You did say I could ask about anything.”

Wade cracks a smile, and it looks horrid. “Kinky.”

“Wade--”

“What? Am I not traumatized enough for a guy like you?"

This is not new for Wade. It’s a lot like their earlier interactions, or the way that Wade treats people like Tony. Like everything is some big joke. Everything is a punchline at someone else’s expense. It’s such an obvious deflection that Peter wants to put a fist through a wall.

Peter rocks back, heels to the ball of his feet to the flat of them, standing all the way up easily as his lower back departs from the top edge of the back of the couch. Wade takes a step back, wanting room between them suddenly.

“There’s a reason I don’t entertain us, Deadpool. You know that. Don't shove it in my face.” Peter says, wearily, and Wade makes no move to actually acknowledge that Peter spoke, or that Peter is tired and hurting and overwhelmed.

He just shrugs and says, magnanimously, “I’m positively shaking, Spider-Man. Whatever could that reason be? Get a girl a fan and some smelling salts.”

Peter opens his mouth, to say explicitly that Wade is hurting his feelings. But, then, Wade knows, doesn’t he? To the people Wade is not friendly with, Deadpool is an ugly man. 

Peter wants to pull his hair out. “What the hell did I do wrong?”

Wades snaps, “Nothing.” He says, not even looking back at Peter. “Nothing, Peter. You didn’t do anything. You’ll just dance around this into infinity. Because that’s fair to me.” 

“That’s not what I’m doing.” Peter insists.

“Fuck.” Wade breathes. “Just loosen the leash a little, will ya?”

“I don’t know what you--”

“Yeah, you do.” He says, two fingers smoothing down the jagged edge of a scar at his throat. “I’m still just as pathetic as I was in the last one. Cool. Good to know.”

“What are you _saying_?”

“Just, yknow, consider the fact that I--” Wade cuts off, and his eyes widen a little. And then the fight goes out of him. “I don’t want you the way I have you.”

Peter’s chest swells. “I know.” He says, quietly, and can’t find it in himself to say anything else. Because what can he say? He wants this too? He wants _Wade_ too? There’s nothing scarier than wanting something, nothing more terrifying than a decision that hasn’t been thought through. “Okay? I know.”

“And?”

Peter feels his face soften, and knows what’s plastered all over it. Maybe Wade reads it wrong. Maybe Wade reads it right. Either way, Wade fits his thumb to Peter’s chin, tilts his face up, and kisses him.

It catches Peter off guard, this soft press of lips. It doesn’t last very long, nothing more than a promise, but its warmth and softness aches so hard that Peter has to turn away from it, jerking his chin hard from Wade’s grip, his mouth from Wade’s mouth, his body angling away. He steps out of Wade's personal space. He takes another step, cupping his elbows in his hands.

There is a long moment where Peter's throat starts to close over.

“Shit.”  Wade whispers, as Peter wipes a hand hard over his mouth, like it’ll wipe the lingering warmth away or let it sink in--Peter isn’t sure. He drops his neck, looking at his feet. "Shit." Wade repeats, and rocks away, hands smoothing down his head. 

Peter wants to tell Wade to stay, but Peter doesn’t know where his mind is at. Despite seeing this coming from a thousand miles out, he still hasn’t prepared for it.

So he lets Wade gather his things, and he lets Wade climb out the window the way he came in.

And that’s it, Then he’s gone, the apartment silent.

He stands there for a moment, and then shakes his head. On his way from the kitchen, he switches the lights off and opens the bedroom door.

Gwen closes her book. “That was eventful.”

Peter licks the taste of Wade from his lips. “I didn’t--”

She tosses her book next to her. She’s sat up in his bed, wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt. “Sounds like he might love you.”

It stings, just a little. “He doesn’t.”

“So you don’t love him?” It’s not a question she expects an answer from, evidently, as she continues, “Okay.”

“Why? Do you have an opinion?”

“I mean. Yeah.”

“Care to share?”

Gwen laughs. “Pete, this isn’t a test. I don’t have the correct answer for you.” She sighs. “You don’t want to lose so you don’t even play. Sounds about right.”

“I’m not a coward.”

“I didn’t say that.” She returns, even. “But you will lose, guaranteed, if you don’t play.”

And then Peter’s eyes open.

His alarm is going off. He’s lying in bed, tangled in sweaty sheets. He rips them off, anxiety upon him like a crowd of fleas, and bursts into the kitchen. 

There is no evidence of disturbance, no proof Wade was even here, except for on the counter--one juiceless glass bottle of olives, half empty.

And Peter remembers--of course he does. He doesn't have much trouble deciding what was real and what wasn't. Wade had been real, kissing him had been real. But then he'd opening his eyes into a dream and saw  _her_.

He used to dream about Gwen Stacy when he missed her, when his emotions were too much, when his thoughts jumped around in his head.

Suddenly, the reasons he’s seeing her are starting to make sense.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FAQ:
> 
> Q:Why did you post this today?  
> A: I used to see her in people I passed on campus. I haven't in a while. 
> 
> Q: What does that mean?  
> A: She died three weeks after we graduated high school, 18 years old and gone in some freak accident and it was so fucking disallusioning, that that combined with other things and the transition made the first couple of years of college just...weird? I figured I should at least address this like….fleetingly….like for some reason i owe you what you all probably assumed anyway. Anyway. I’m healthy now. Which is why this isn’t as good lmfao. 
> 
> Q: What about morning in the burned house?  
> A: girl i am BLOCKD. 
> 
> Q: You gotta playlist, bish?  
> A: i mean. yah. it's very bad.  
> [here ya go i suppose](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3Fgnj8WL8dRqH5s1mLllAC)
> 
>  Q: Who is paul avery  
> A: that's kinda a spoiler in a way but i'm not stopping you from googling it
> 
> Q: Who got fired on Below Deck??!?!?!?  
> A: Nobody yet...but chef is really close to it...uh oh ladies
> 
> Q: what the fuck  
> A: yeah.
> 
> Also guys send me the SM/DP things u write i'm in the mood to read something underrated


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